by Jude Knight
Mrs Thorpe smiled. “Excellent. And Lalamani shall enjoy having a young person to talk to; for we have been deserted by our usual visitors, Lord Calne. Mr Daventry, I mean.”
“Please call me ‘Philip’,” he suggested. “After all, you knew my father and my great grandmother, so I am practically family.”
Mrs Thorpe’s eyes twinkled. “If you call me ‘Aunt Hannah’.”
Lalamani scrambled to her feet. “I shall walk you to the Hall gates,” she said.
Within minutes, she had fetched her pelisse and bonnet and they were strolling up the lane, dodging the worst of the puddles.
Lalamani tucked her hand confidingly into his elbow. “Philip, I cannot be sure, but I suspect the Reverend Wagley of wickedness. Will you help me find out?”
Philip nodded. He would do more than help. After all, this was his business, and he said so. “I intend to unmask him, Lalamani. If he has been stealing the earldom’s rents, perhaps for years, then he has to be stopped. And if I can recover any of the moneys, they should go back into the estate. Perhaps there will be enough…”
But he trailed off. She had stopped and was staring at him in surprise. “He has been stealing the rents?”
“He has been collecting the rents, according to the tenants to whom I’ve spoken, and my lawyer denies ever seeing them. One of them is lying.”
“The rector, certainly, for I am sure he has been stealing from Aunt Hannah. You will help me, will you not? You don’t have to leave the village yet?”
If Lalamani was heading into danger, the whole of Napoleon’s army wouldn’t be able to shift him from her side.
“Tell me,” he suggested, and when she told him the whole story, he agreed it sounded suspicious.
“Write to your uncle’s man of business and ask him for the details of the inheritance and the trust,” he advised. “I’ll find out how to get the letter to the mail collection point.” He corrected himself. “Your man of business, now, of course.”
“I wish he thought so.” Lalamani sighed. “In his mind, Mr Wiggens still works for Uncle Hadley. ‘A young lady like yourself, Miss Finchurch, need not worry her pretty little head about figures and other such fusty stuff.’ I look forward to the day I turn twenty-five and can find a man of business who does not think a woman incapable of thinking.”
“Does he know you were your uncle’s secretary and managed all of his affairs from the time you were seventeen?”
“He is convinced I wrote to my uncle’s dictation. He disapproves. He tells me Uncle should have sent me home when I was seventeen ‘so you could make your curtesy to the Queen, Miss Finchurch.’ So I could catch a husband before I become so elderly, he means.”
They had reached the gates to the Hall’s coach road, and before they parted, Philip enjoined Lalamani not to let the rector know of her suspicions. “We do not want to give him time to cover his tracks,” he said. “If he has been stealing from your aunt, we’d do better to surprise him with the evidence.”
Lalamani turned back. Philip walked the rest of the way into the village, turning what he’d learned over in his mind.
Perhaps he should take Lalamani’s letter up to London himself. Interviewing Mr Wiggens could be useful. But first he wanted to meet this villainous rector.
Chapter Eight
Lalamani joined Aunt Hannah and Addy in the kitchen to help cook dinner, overriding her aunt’s objections.
Lalamani took the opportunity to try to persuade Aunt Hannah someone had been stealing from her. The suggestion fell on deaf ears. Aunt Hannah could not believe it. Certainly, it could not be Dr Wagley. The mind revolted! He might be a little strict, Aunt Hannah conceded, but no one could doubt his faith. His sermons were thirty minutes long! He always knew the right passage from Scripture to show others the errors of their ways. No, Dr Wagley was a fine Christian man, though not, perhaps, as generous to the poor as her own dear Mr Thorpe.
Perhaps Dr Wagley’s way was better. He said helping the poor only made them lazy. But Aunt Hannah sounded doubtful. “My dear Mr Thorpe said all of us faced trouble in our lives, and the good Lord wanted us to help others when they were in need.”
Lalamani carefully studied the gingerbread stars she was icing to decide whether she should add more lines. “I like that, Aunt Hannah. He sounds lovely.”
“He was, dear. Such a kind man. It did cause trouble sometimes, because he hated upsetting people. I remember one Easter when he gave three different women the lead solo, and the time he wanted to add five more grand prizes at the Whitsunweek fete, because he didn’t want any of the entrants to be disappointed. The people loved him, dear, and they were all very helpful when I explained.”
Lalamani managed to keep her face and her voice neutral. “Dr Wagley does not experience the same difficulty, I take it.”
“Oh no, dear. Dr Wagley is very decisive. Of course, we do not have the fete any more. Dr Wagley felt it was a pagan festival and promoted licentious and debauched behaviour. And we do not have women in the psalm singers anymore.” Aunt Hannah sighed. “I am sure it is all for the best.”
Addy, who had been returning the chicken to its pot after turning it, slammed the lid back onto the dutch oven with quite unnecessary force. “Handsome is as handsome does,” she muttered.
“He is very good about visiting the sick, Addy,” Aunt Hannah said, but Addy just snorted.
With the three of them working, an expansive if simple dinner was ready for Addy and Milly to put on the table when Philip and the Wagleys arrived.
From behind the curtain in the parlour, Lalamani saw Philip arrive at the gate just as the Wagley’s gig pulled up. The two who descended, as Lalamani had noticed at church, were male and female counterparts: tall, gaunt, and elderly; spry, but a little bent. They put Lalamani in mind of herons—sharp features and an alert forward-leaning stance.
Lalamani flicked the curtain back into place and hurried into the front hall in time to introduce Philip.
“Allow me to present Philip Daventry, who works for the Earl of Calne.”
Two pair of pale eyes fixed first on Lalamani and then on Philip. Brother and sister both, Lalamani noted, jutted their chins forward and lengthened their necks, increasing the resemblance to herons. Dr Wagley, dressed top to toe in black, relieved only by a white stock, clearly stinted nothing on the cut and quality of his cloth, and Miss Wagley’s grey silk gown was trimmed with, if Lalamani was not mistaken, real French lace. The contrast between their finery and Aunt Hannah’s worn and much-mended widow’s wear could scarcely be greater.
Dr Wagley surveyed Philip from top to toe, and asked, coldly, “And what do you do here, sirrah? The people of this village think highly of Mrs Thorpe, and will not see her put upon.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Dr Wagley,” Philip answered mildly. “I am here to survey the Hall, to decide what repairs are necessary.”
Miss Wagley furrowed her brow. “You are a Daventry? How closely related are you to the earl, Mr Daventry?”
“The late earl was a connection of my father’s,” Philip prevaricated.
“Did you hear that, Jeremiah?” Miss Wagley tugged on her brother’s arm, but Wagley’s harrumph suggested he was not impressed.
The conversation in the parlour limped from one pronouncement by Dr Wagley after another. He frowned upon the evangelical fervour gripping a nearby parish, was suspicious about the proposed Act of Union, despised the call by radicals to widen the vote, and was scathing about the Speenhamland system of poor relief.
Addy’s invitation to the dining room interrupted a homily on the place of women—silent and obedient.
Over dinner, Lalamani made an effort to turn the conversation. “Mr Daventry was formerly in the army. Before you arrived, he was telling us a little about the markets in Egypt.”
Dr Wagley looked dourer than before. “Nothing unsuitable for a lady, I trust.”
“Oh, Jeremiah,” his sister chirped, “Mr Daventry is a gentleman; a relative of Calne, y
ou know.”
Philip, catching Lalamani’s desperate eye-roll, picked up the conversational ball with a story about a carpet he and his friends had bargained for and how language difficulties had almost left them with a camel instead. He made an amusing tale of it, but only Lalamani laughed.
Dr Wagley spoke into the pause. “Another excellent meal, Mrs Thorpe. Mrs Thorpe sets a fine table, Daventry.”
Lalamani did not try to resist the impulse. “My aunt is very grateful for the charity of the people of the parish, Dr Wagley, without which she would undoubtedly starve. Though…”
She felt a blow on her ankle. Philip, who had clearly guessed she was about to mention her uncle’s provision for his sister. She shot him an accusing glance, but pressed her lips tightly together.
“The care of widows,” Dr Wagley opined, “is, of course, enjoined on us in Scripture. ‘But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’ Charity begins at home.” He nodded seriously and took another mouthful of the donated chicken.
“And,” his sister added, “it is the duty of every Christian to support the men of the cloth.” She poked suspiciously at the chicken. “I would not like to think our parishioners were stinting their duty.”
“Now, now, Euphrania,” Dr Wagley said. “We do not begrudge Mrs Thorpe a chicken or two, especially when she has visitors. Do you make a long stay, Miss Finchurch? It would not do for you to be a charge on your aunt.” He cast her an admonishing stare over the top of his glasses, which had slipped almost to the tip of his nose.
“My plans are not fixed, Dr Wagley.” Lalamani was going to ask how it was his affair, but Philip spoke first, once again preventing her from antagonising the sour old man.
“How nice that you are able to support your brother in his parish work, Miss Wagley.”
Miss Wagley needed no encouragement to dominate the conversation for the rest of that remove and all of the next. According to her, the parish had been neglected before the Wagleys arrived, and the people sunk in idleness and dissolute living. She seemed completely oblivious to any distress she might be causing Aunt Hannah, and—indeed—Aunt Hannah seemed barely to be listening.
Dr Wagley, when his sister asked his opinion—which was often—declared his agreement, often backing it up with a biblical verse, mostly, Lalamani noted, from the old Testament.
For the rest, he applied himself to his dinner, trying all the dishes on the table, and eating his way through every serving. He only took over the discussion once, when Lalamani pointed out Christmas was less than two weeks away.
“Christmas? Christmas? We do not celebrate that pagan festival in this parish, Miss Finchurch.” The rhetorical bit within his teeth, he declaimed for several minutes on the pagan origins of traditional Christmas activities and the likely eternal destination of those who succumbed to the lure of evergreen decorations and other more licentious activities he would scorn to describe in the hearing of a lady. He graced his sister with a bow of his head.
By the time he pushed back a little from the table, the other four had long finished. Aunt Hannah had been looking uncertainly from him to Lalamani for some time, clearly wondering if she should signal the ladies’ departure from the table. Before she could make up her mind, though, Miss Wagley stood.
“Ladies,” she announced, and led the way to the parlour next door.
The men didn’t stay at the table above ten minutes, and shortly after they joined the ladies, the Wagleys’ gig arrived, and they said their farewells.
Lalamani waited for them to offer Philip a lift back to the inn, which they would pass on the way to the rectory. He was moving his arm cautiously after all his work at the Hall, and would surely be better to ride rather than walk. The Wagleys, though, collected their coats and shawls, and moved towards the front door without any such offer.
“Dr Wagley,” Lalamani said. “Would you have room in your gig for Mr Daventry? I believe his arm is paining him.”
Philip’s glare suggested a total lack of appropriate gratitude, but he recovered himself to thank Dr Wagley politely, and the three left together.
Much though Philip wanted to stay behind for another word with Lalamani, he was glad not to face that walk, especially since it was raining again. The ride was short, only a few minutes of Dr Wagley’s chilly disapproval and Miss Wagley’s clumsy sycophancy.
As he prepared for bed, he turned over what they’d found out in the course of the day. Dr Wagley was an unlikely villain, however disagreeable he might be. But unlikely was not impossible. Lalamani was adamant her man of business was honest: an income had been left and income there was none. And Uncle Henry swore by Philip’s own man.
By the morning, he had a plan. He walked the distance to the house once more, this time through driving rain. Lalamani scolded him for coming out and set his coat to dripping in front of the kitchen fire.
He admired the voluminous apron protecting her day dress. It had been made for Aunt Hannah, clearly, and wrapped Lalamani’s slender body completely.
“We are turning out the rest of the bed chambers,” Lalamani explained.
“We need to talk, Lalamani.” He broke off to greet the smiling Mrs Thorpe.
“So lovely to have company, Philip. Come and sit down. You find us at sixes and sevens, but we can find you a place to sit and a nice cup of tea.”
“No, Aunt Hannah, I’m here to help. Many a time I’ve cleaned up after myself. Lead me to a broom or a dust cloth, and I’m your man.”
“We’ll talk when she has her rest,” Lalamani murmured as she passed him a bucket and a rag.
They stopped for a bite to eat at noon, and then Aunt Hannah went off to her bed, “For I am not as young as I used to be, my dears,” and Addy to her room off the kitchen.
“Milly, Mr Daventry and I have some paperwork to take care of.” Lalamani sent her maid to doze by the kitchen fire.
In the parlour, Philip explained what he had in mind. He would write to Brigadier General Lord Henry Redepenning, his uncle, explain their concerns, and ask him to visit both men of business and investigate.
“And you’re sure your uncle would not mind?”
“Not at all,” Philip reassured her. His uncle would assume Philip’s interest in the matter was personal and would do all he could for a potential Countess of Calne. And his uncle would not be wrong, if Philip could find a way to provide for a wife without depending on her own wealth.
Together, they composed a letter, with many starts, stops, and insertions.
“There,” Philip said after a while. “I think we have it.”
“Give it here, Philip, and I’ll write it out again.”
Philip went off to put the kettle on the fire for another pot of tea, and Lalamani took their much-crossed draft to write it in a fair hand.
Chapter Nine
The rain set in for several days. Each morning, Philip made the trek to the house, declaring he could do no work at the Hall until the weather cleared. Aunt Hannah cheerfully accepted his presence without any comment beyond declaring they would eat their main meal in the middle of the day, “as the country people do, Philip,” so he had only the one trip each day, and would not be walking in the rain and the dark.
Lalamani didn’t comment either. She held herself at a slight distance, and Philip—conscious of his new feelings for her, but unclear about how she felt—did not try to bridge the gap. These days of domesticity were peaceful and pleasant.
Philip joined Lalamani in the kitchen, where she made gingerbread shapes and other Christmas treats, and he brought a huge box of ribbons down from the attic so she could concoct Christmas decorations to put up on Christmas Eve. He helped clean, mend, and even paint until the whole house was gleaming.
One day he ventured down into the cellars, which had loomed in his childhood as the gateway to hell. His father had spoken briefly of that watershed moment in his own childhood. Philip told Lalamani th
e story, holding her hand against the chill that had leaked into his soul from his father’s memories.
Hugo Daventry’s older brother, Walter, had locked Hugo and Gerard in their grandmother’s cellar, then gone home and told no one they were there. Perhaps the older boy had not known Lady Calne was assisting at a birth and the servants were on their Sunday half-day. Or perhaps he intended the twins not to be found for twelve hours. Both boys had been chilled, and Gerard, already sick with a winter ague, had never recovered, dying several days later.
“My grandfather blamed my father,” Philip told Lalamani. “His heir told him it was my father’s idea, and my uncle tried to dissuade them. The earl believed Walter.”
It was the beginning of the split in the family that became permanent when Hugo married a commoner, the younger sister of Lord Henry Redepenning’s wife.
The cellar lost its terror after he told Lalamani its history, and it desperately needed sorting, so he spent an afternoon down there putting items on shelves and hauling the obvious rubbish outside for disposal.
One room on the lower side of the house, with a row of high windows letting in the light, had obviously been a play place for the twins, and perhaps previous generations of grandchildren, for Philip found the detritus of their games, and smiled as he recognised signifiers of some of his father’s stories: a chest full of glass and gilt jewellery and costume crowns that had featured as a pirate’s treasure, a pair of wooden swords and lozenge shaped shields on which the painted crosses still shone after he wiped off the dirt, a box filled with a carved army—no, two armies—their colours still discernible, though chipped and scratched after years of playing. Philip put those treasures on a shelf. He’d ask Aunt Hannah, later, if he might have them.
In the evenings, he mixed with the local patrons of the inn and found the village sharply divided in their opinions. Miss Wagley was roundly condemned by one and all as an interfering old besom, but Dr Wagley was regarded as a saint in some quarters and a tyrant in others. As the chairman of the workhouse committee and wielder of influence with the squire and therefore the constable, even those who didn’t like him feared to cross him.